Mumbai attacks: First evidence of home-grown terror link

The first evidence of a home-grown terrorist link to the Mumbai attacks
emerged today as police revealed an Indian suspect arrested earlier this
year may have been involved in the planning.

Mumbai attacks: Bombay police say the siege has endedPhoto: GETTY

By Damien McElroy in Mumbai

2:44PM GMT 05 Dec 2008

Officers said they had maps seized from a man picked up in February suggesting intelligence gathering had begun more than a year ago.

Police apparently failed to recognise the importance of the nine maps, which included detailed floor plans of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel and marked the position of Mumbai's main railway terminus, after arresting Faheem Ansari.

Both locations were targeted by gunmen last week, alongside a hotel complex, a restaurant and a Jewish resident.

Ansari, who was born in India, has been accused of joining the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) after emigrating to Dubai five years ago.

Officials said that he subsequently travelled to Pakistan where he was trained by LeT leader Yusuf Muzammil at the same camp where the lone survivor of the Mumbai attacks, Amir Azam Qasab was allegedly trained.

Ansari was arrested in February in northern India carrying hand-drawn sketches of hotels, the train terminal and other sites that were later attacked in Mumbai, said Amitabh Yash, director of the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police.

Mr Ansari also had up-to-date blueprints of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel that were better than those available to the security services, Mr Yash said.

The revelation amounted to a double blow for the government and security forces, which have suffered a public backlash as anger grows over security lapses that led up to the deaths of 171.

It also undermined government attempts to focus international pressure on Pakistan by raising the spectre of home-grown terrorist involvement in the plot to attack the country's richest city.

Indian has the world's second largest Muslim population but is extremely sensitive to suggestions that its own citizens harbour Pan-Islamic grievances against the state.

Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, lashed out at Pakistan again, stating it was unacceptable that the territory of neighbouring state had been used to perpetrate an act of terror.

Indian officials continue to brief that Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence was involved in training the group of 10 behind the attack. "The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) connection was clear and evident," the Times of India quoted Indian intelligence sources as saying.

Ansari was alleged to have stayed in a guesthouse in the southern district of Mumbai where the terrorists arrived on fast boats from the sea last week. The material he collected during his stay was seized two months later when he was arrested for involvement in an attack in another part of the country.

The documents were included in a prosecution file but it is not clear they were widely circulated within the government. A sketch of the Fort district identified the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station where gunmen opened fire at the outset of the assault, killing more than 50 commuters.

Officials said that while in custody Ansari was taken to Mumbai for three days, where he was questioned by the city's Anti-Terrorism Squad about the plans but the line of enquiry was dropped.

Meanwhile leading American terrorism experts have fuelled speculation that some terrorists involved in the plot had escaped detection. Leading counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen, who advised General David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command, said the numbers involved were likely to be higher. He said: "The Indians said there were 10 attackers, based on the fact that they captured one and killed nine – you have to assume there are more out there."

In the wake of the attacks, several Indian officials have resigned including the top officials in Maharashtra state and the cabinet minister responsible for security.

Palaniappan Chidambaram, the new Home Minister, apologised for the government's failure to stop the attacks. "There have been lapses," he said. "I would be less than truthful if I said there had been no lapses."